


Guide My Way to You

by lforevermore



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soul Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 15:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5590879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lforevermore/pseuds/lforevermore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"not much of a prompt really, but i love all soul mate fics. i would love one with any pairing (maybe larry or tomlinshaw?) and any soulmate verse (tattoos or whatever). storyline doesn't really matter, maybe something sweet about finding soulmates or anything really."</p><p>Or, Louis has always heard Harry's voice in his head, but with Harry going off to uni, Louis isn't sure they'll ever be able to find each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guide My Way to You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Idzzdi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idzzdi/gifts).



> I scrapped all of my original ideas and wrote this in two hours.
> 
> Follow at inmywildernesswriting.tumblr.com

Guide My Way to You

There’s always been a voice in Louis’ head.

It’s not his own – sometimes he thinks he’s crazy, even though his mother says he’s one of the special ones, someone gifted with a soul mate, a second heartbeat that he can hear next to his own. It belongs to a boy he doesn’t really know but a boy that he _knows_. It’s like having a second soul. It’s like having a second brain. It’s maddening and wonderful at the same time, and it’s all that Louis has ever known.

“ _Good morning_ ,” Harry greets him every morning – he’s an early riser where Louis prefers to sleep in, and he’s always good about making sure he doesn’t disturb Louis too early. Louis, in turn, tries to keep it down later at night, barring a few ‘drunk dials’ of sorts when he’s gone out.

He doesn’t know what Harry looks like. He can just hear, not see, after all, and every time they try to talk about where they are, something whites them out. It’s like it’s a cosmic game of some kind, like Louis really has to hunt Harry out, and sometimes, it doesn’t feel fair. There are stories of people who never found their soul mate, after all, who spent a lifetime searching only to come up empty. Most of the time, the universe is supposed to work it out for you. Sometimes Louis thinks that it would be better never to have heard Harry’s voice at all.

Most of the time, though, Louis dreads a day when that quiet, deep voice goes silent.

“ _Mngh_ ,” Louis says in response to Harry’s cheerful greeting. He grabs at his phone – the alarm is going off, after all, a Katy Perry song that he’s had as his alarm forever. It drives Zaynie nuts every morning that he’s forced to wake up to it as well. Luckily, though, Zayn’s got a drawing class at eight on Tuesdays, so today Louis doesn’t wake up to a pillow to the face.

“ _What’s on the agenda today_?” Harry asks – he’s probably bored out of his mind, almost done with his final year of high school and senioritis in full swing.

Ah, Louis remembers those days. It’s honestly a miracle he got into uni at all.

“ _Class_ ,” Louis grunts. He’s not vocal before his coffee, not even in his own brain. “ _Then work._ ”

“ _Coffee shop or library?_ ”

“ _Tuesday, love, library._ ”

Harry sighs. Sometimes Louis desperately wishes he could see Harry’s facial expressions. “ _You work too hard_.”

“ _Someone’s gotta pay for the lap of luxury to which I am accustomed_.” Louis splashes his face and reaches for the jeans he’d worn the day before, runs his fingers through his hair. It’s sticking up, because of course it is.

“ _Are you playing with your hair_?”

Louis scowls. “ _I’m fixing it, Harold. Most people do that in the mornings_.”

“ _You’re going to be late_.”

And, ah, Harry’s right, because of course he is. Then again, Louis is usually fifteen minutes late with coffee. Honestly, if they expect him to show up on time by now, they’re delusional.

“ _Sometimes beauty can’t be rushed_ ,” he says, even as he grabs a hat to shove over his hair.

 _“I’m sure_ ,” Harry says, and sounds amused.

They chat idly as Louis walks to the coffee shop, and then to class. He slides in the back of the lecture hall, drops his head on his desk and clutches his coffee like his life depends on it. Harry carries the conversation, going on about his friend Niall and his class, and Louis could definitely fall asleep to this if he’s not careful.

Finals are coming up, though, and so he sits up and forces himself to pay attention. Reluctantly, he tells Harry that he needs to concentrate.

“ _Talk to you later, Lou,_ ” Harry says, and Louis can hear the smile in his voice.

 

It’s like instant messaging, really, Louis thinks sometimes. He can sign on and off again, turn the volume down if he wants to. It’s like constantly having a chatroom in your head, except there’s just one person and they’re your favorite person in the world. He talks to Harry morning, noon, and night, and Harry is probably the most supportive person that Louis has ever met in his life.

He edges out a little during finals, but Harry knows him better than anyone, knows when Louis is stretched thin. He’s encouraging, offering tidbits of advice and reminding Louis to sleep and eat, telling him that he thinks that Louis will make a great counselor, he’s just got to finish this paper.

When it’s all said and done, Louis has survived another year of college and Harry’s graduating.

They’d described themselves once. It’s not really enough to build a concrete image, but Louis has a general idea – namely curly hair. He can imagine it trapped beneath the cap, picture a tall, lanky boy in a gown standing beside a smiling woman.

He wants desperately to be there, but the best he can do is cheer him on from inside his own head.

“ _They’re almost to my name, Lou_ ,” Harry says, breathless and excited. “ _What if they don’t call me? What if there’s a mistake and they forget me_?”

“ _No one could ever forget you, babe_.” Louis is staring at his ceiling in his childhood bedroom, but in his mind he’s somewhere else – a crowded auditorium with cameras flashing and applause. “ _You’re unforgettable_.”

“ _You’re biased_. _Oh my god, they said my name_.”

“ _Go get it, babe_.” Louis smiles at his ceiling – he’s so damn proud of this boy that he’s never seen, so proud that tears are pricking at the corners of his eyes. “ _You earned it_.”

Harry is quiet for awhile after that, overwhelmed no doubt. He has to walk across the stage and shake hands, and god, Louis wants to _be there_ , but settles for murmuring encouragements aloud as he thinks them to Harry.

“ _I’ve got it, Lou_ ,” Harry says after a few minutes. “ _We’re gonna throw our caps soon, then pictures and such. I can’t believe it, I’m finally done_.”

Harry’s going to university soon, Louis knows. He’ll meet a ton of people – they’re growing up and time is going so fast and suddenly Louis feels like he can’t breathe.

“ _I’m proud of you_ ,” he says, and he sounds choked up even in his own mind. “ _So proud, Harold. Go, be with your family. I’ll be here in the morning._ ”

“ _Thanks, Lou. Love you_.”

Then Louis is left to himself, silence on the other end, and he lets himself give in to the overwhelming feeling of bittersweet as he starts to realize exactly what this change might mean.

 

They don’t talk about it. Louis knows that Harry’s had boyfriends before, and Louis had a pretty serious girlfriend in high school. It’s not something that they discuss beyond a cursory explanation as to why they’ve been absent, or otherwise engaged. Harry mentioned that his boyfriends can’t usually handle the whole ‘soul mate’ thing, even if it doesn’t have to mean romantically compatible. Louis privately thinks that Harry will be it for him, even if he’s not the _one_ for Harry.

Summer passes in a flurry of days and conversations that Louis treasures.

“ _Have you considered what you’re going to study?_ ”

“ _Communications, I think,”_ Harry says. He sounds distracted. “ _I’m not even sure I got in yet, Lou_.”

“ _You’ll get in,_ ” Louis says. “ _I have faith in you_. _What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when you get there?_ ”

“ _It’s a bit silly. Very cliché._ ”

“ _Tell me anyway._ ”

Harry blows out a breath – or, well. Thinks himself blowing out a breath? Louis isn’t actually sure how that works sometimes. “ _I think I’m gonna get a tattoo_.”

Louis has a few already – a stick figure riding a skateboard is probably his favorite so far. “ _What are you going to get_?”

“ _Well, I’m always searching, right? Looking for you, and I figured that kind of makes me like… like… anyway. I’m always looking for you, and I think I’m going to get a ship on my arm._ ”

That stops Louis. Always looking for him, just like the way that Louis is always half-listening to conversations, hoping to hear Harry’s voice with his ears and not just his mind. One half of a soul always looking for the other, he thinks wildly, just as his mother has always said. Star-crossed in the worst of ways.

There are seven billion people on the planet, Louis thinks.

“ _Lou? What do you think?_ ” And Harry sounds nervous, and they’ve never really _talked_ about this.

“ _Tattoos should mean something_ ,” Louis says, and it sounds ridiculous even to him. He has a stick figure riding a skateboard, for crying out loud. “ _If it means something to you, then get it_.”

“ _Not it. You. You mean something, Lou._ ”

Louis doesn’t know what to say to that, really.

 

He goes a few weeks later with a little bit of money he’s saved up and sits through another tattoo. This time when he walks away, it’s with an anchor on his arm, rope curling around his skin.

“ _It means something_ ,” he tells Harry.

 

Two weeks before he goes back to school, and he’s not really sleeping. He’s excited for Harry – this is a new chapter of his life, after all – but also terrified. It’s a strange fear, being afraid of Harry finding someone who makes him happy.

“ _Listen_ ,” he says one night, rouses Harry from a relatively light sleep, or so he thinks. “ _Listen, we need to talk about something_.”

“ _Right now?_ ”

“ _I’m not gonna sleep otherwise._ ”

That’s got Harry’s attention. “ _What’s bothering you_?”

“ _Do you think we’ll ever find each other?_ ”

Harry doesn’t even hesitate. “ _I do_. _”_

Louis pauses. He wants to believe, he does, but he’s also a realist. He’s never been great at being an optimist either. He wants to believe they’ll find each other, that he’ll just look up one day and see Harry across a crowded room and just _know_. He wants to believe that someday he’ll be able to run his hands through Harry’s curls and fold him into a hug, that he’ll see pictures of Harry in his cap and gown, meet his mother and his sister, that he’ll be there when Harry graduates uni.

“ _Do you?_ ” Harry asks, and he sounds so vulnerable.

Louis takes a moment to respond. “ _I don’t know_ ,” he finally confesses, quietly. “ _I want to, but… I don’t know, Harry._ ”

“ _That’s okay,”_ Harry says. “ _I’ll believe enough for the both of us, okay?_ ”

His next tattoo, Louis thinks, is going to be a compass, so that he can guide Harry home.

 

The next weeks are filled with flurries of activity and conversation. Louis moves back into the dorms and catches up with Zayn, gets used to life on campus again. He missed frilly coffee, he thinks, even as he sleepily makes it for someone else, wearing a little apron and a uniform that he actually doesn’t mind all that much.

“ _Did you ever wear a uniform at the bakery_?” he asks Harry one day as he’s filling orders.

“ _I wore an apron,_ ” Harry replies. “ _Does that count?”_

“ _Please tell me it had frills_.”

“ _It was very practical, unfortunately._ ”

Louis smiles, and he knows it must look like coffee just makes him very, very happy. In reality, it’s the adorable boy currently moving into his own dorm.

That thought brings him up cold. He pauses and looks down at the anchor, lets it ground him, and then gets back to making coffee.

 

“How’s Harry?” Zayn asks. He’s one of the few who know outside of Louis’ family, only because sometimes when Louis wakes up, he starts answering Harry out loud. And also because Zayn’s a pretty good friend.

They’re relaxing on their beds, getting used to the constant sounds around them once more. Zayn’s got his sketchbook out and Louis is supposed to be getting a headstart on his reading, but that’s not happening. He’s too worked up, and he supposes that Zayn can tell.

“Growing up,” Louis says. “I mean. He graduated, so. University for him, too.”

“Do you know where?”

Louis shakes his head. He gives up on even pretending to read and drops the book to the side, lets it fall off the bed and hit the beanbag below with a satisfying _plop_. “It’s like some angry god likes to watch me suffer,” he says. “Every time one of us tries to talk about location, it’s like… white noise. It just drowns it out.”

Zayn makes a sympathetic sound. “Well, what all do you know about him? How can we find him?”

“I don’t know that I can, Z,” Louis says quietly. “I don’t know that I ever will. I’m terrified he’s going to meet someone and just… go away.”

“You’re soul mates,” Zayn says. “You can’t just get rid of each other.”

“One time he didn’t talk to me for three days, and it was awful,” Louis replies.

“What do you know about him?” Zayn asks again.

“His name is Harry Styles,” Louis says with a sigh. “He’s eighteen, and he’s got brown, curly hair. He’s gonna get a ship tattoo on his arm.”

“Is that why you got the anchor? ‘S sweet, Lou,” Zayn says with a smile.

Louis blushes. “It means something,” he says quietly. “Anyway. He’s going to study communications, and he’s probably the sweetest boy in the world, with the best singing voice I’ve ever heard.”

“Wait, he sings to you? In your head?”

“I think I love him,” Louis says in a rush. “I think I love him more than anyone, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I never find him.”

“What’s his accent?”

Louis stops. _How_ had he never thought of that before? “…British. He’s from England, so…”

“So he could be close,” Zayn says, and smiles. “See? It’s not all hopeless, Lou.”

 

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis says one night after Zayn’s in bed. Classes start in two days and this is all Louis can think about, nerves and anxiety replacing his usual pre-class excitement.

“ _Yeah_?”

“ _It’s okay if…_ ” Louis takes a deep breath, both in his mind and on the outside. “ _It’s okay if you… if you meet someone._ ”

“ _Of course I’m going to meet people, Louis_.” Harry sounds slow, like he’s fighting sleep.

“ _I mean if… if you meet someone, you know. Special_.”

“ _What? Louis, I’m not…_ ” Harry sighs. “ _Louis, I love you. I love **you** , okay?_”

“ _Harry_ -“

“ _No, listen. I love you. I’m always going to love you. No one knows me like you do, and no one ever will. I’ve told you things I will never tell anyone else. You’re it for me, Lou, you’re the one. I want to… I want to marry you, I want to raise children with you, I want to be ridiculously domestic and introduce you to my mum and watch you graduate. Okay?_ ”

Louis feels like he can’t breathe, but this time, it’s a good feeling. He thinks. He’s not sure. “ _What if we never find each other? What if I waste away my life and I never find you_?”

“ _Then this is enough for me_ ,” Harry says quietly. “ _Hearing you when I wake up, falling asleep to your voice. This can be enough for me_. _Can it be enough for you_?”

“ _It has to be, babe_ ,” Louis says. “ _You’re… you’re it for me, too. You’re everything I want, Harry. You’re perfect and amazing and sweet, and… and I don’t want you to put your happiness on hold just because I love you_.”

“ _It’s like you don’t listen sometimes. I know you have to hear me, so I’ll say it again. I. Love. You.”_ Harry says each word with conviction and emphasis, like he’s saying it to the rhythm of their hearts beating in their chests. “ _I love you. I’ll say it as many times as I have to for you to understand. I love you, Louis. I love you._ ”

Louis falls asleep to that – Harry saying it over and over again in his mind. I love you, I love you, I love you.

 

The first day of classes is brutal. He’s got an eight o’clock, a two o’clock and a five o’clock, all on a Monday. Two are upper level psychology courses, but the last is a basic philosophy class, an elective that he’s always been interested in and only just had the opportunity to take. By the time he walks into the class, on time for once, even with coffee, people are already seated and he’s exhausted, cursing his advisor for talking him into three classes in one day.

It’s a small class. The desks are arranged in a circle and the teacher is notoriously eccentric.

“ _My first class of the day!_ ” Harry says excitedly. “ _My first class ever. Oh god, what if they don’t like me_?”

“ _They’ll love you. I do_ ,” Louis says.

“ _You’re biased._ ”

“ _Seriously, though, you’re probably just going to play some icebreaker games and then go over the syllabus. Maybe part of the first chapter depending on how dedicated your teacher is._ ”

“ _I’ve heard stories about this guy_ ,” Harry says. _“They say he’s pretty strange_.”

Louis snorts into his coffee cup, glancing around at his classmates. A couple of girls. A boy in a red floral shirt, in the seat next to him. A few more students looking around, wide-eyed. Looks like he’s the only upper-level student – wonderful. This’ll be cake, he thinks. “ _All college professors are strange, love._ ”

“Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves, shall we? Name, major, something interesting about yourself,” the professor says, clapping his hands together and then rubbing them like he’s trying to start a fire. “We’ll start with… ah, Becky, isn’t it?”

They go around the circle. Becky, Josh, a sporty looking bloke named Liam. Finally they get to the boy next to Louis, the one in the floral shirt, who takes a deep breath before he speaks.

“Hi, everyone.”

Oh god.

Oh, Louis _knows_ that voice.

It’s practically written on his soul.

He nearly drops his coffee.

“I’m Harry Styles. I’m, uh. Majoring in Communications, at least for right now.”

Louis can’t breathe. He turns and he stares, knows that he looks ridiculous. His eyes are misty, though, and he wants to reach out and touch.

“Interesting fact… I’ve got a soul mate.” Harry smiles at the murmurs around him, and god, the boy has _dimples_ , he’d never mentioned those.

“So do I,” Louis manages, and Harry finally turns that beautiful gaze to him, smile falling away into something like amazement. “So do I, Harold.”

“ _Lou_?”

“Lou?”

It’s his name. In stereo sound.

Harry _beams_ , radiant, eyes wide as he drinks in the sight of Louis. Louis scrambles out of his desk, knocks his coffee over and doesn’t even care. Harry lurches to his feet and they stare at each other – the chatter around them falls away, girls whispering to each other about reading this in a romance novel once.

Louis reaches out and drags Harry in, and it feels like puzzle pieces fitting together. Like a ship dropping anchor.

Like a compass pointing towards home.


End file.
